


Parable

by CanonCannon



Category: Prodigal Son - Fandom, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, aaaand now I've added another ficlet, concussed Daryl, i was always going to write this fic, might as well get it out of the way early, this is something goofy for fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-02-29 07:52:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanonCannon/pseuds/CanonCannon
Summary: Prodigal Son/TWD Crossover Ficlets





	1. Chapter 1

Malcolm was only saved by a series of unlikely events he categorized into good luck, dumb luck, and bad luck.

He was on vacation in Florida when the plague hit, whiling away the required leave after shooting a perp at work—the one mimicking his father’s M.O., the one he still thought perhaps his father had been helping somehow. He didn’t need the time, didn’t want a break, but the unit’s shrink had insisted. Visiting his old martial arts instructor for a couple of days had sounded better than waiting around in his basement Brooklyn apartment.

News reports about the plague became more serious, enough that he tried to cut his trip short. His flight back to New York was overbooked—dumb luck—and he’d had to settle for the next flight out. There hadn’t been much information out about the roamers by then, but he’d seen someone being taken away at the airport, an elderly man strapped to a gurney being pushed by people in hazmat suits.

Then, the bad luck that ultimately saved his life: his plane had never made it to New York, crash landing somewhere in Virginia. Malcolm never found out exactly what happened, if someone on the flight was infected or something had gone wrong at air traffic control.

\--

At a makeshift clinic at a military base two days later, he caught what may have been the last ever news broadcast from the city of New York. A well-known anchor, someone his sister knew socially, stood on top of a building, the camera zooming in on the crowd below.

Malcolm threw up, partially from the images on the screen and partially from the morphine in his veins for his broken arm.

They were everywhere, dead yet alive. He saw police uniforms mixed in among the herd and threw up again.

There was no escaping that. They were doomed, all of them, everyone he knew.

His sister Ainsley lived in a suburb in New Jersey—maybe she and her family had gotten out. He told himself that it was possible, even though he knew the station would have wanted all hands on deck to cover the crisis.

And their mother hadn’t left Manhattan in a decade. Malcolm had no doubt that she was there, trapped, and despite all their complicated history, he wished more than anything that he could reach her.

In a way, he was grateful for that news broadcast. If he hadn’t seen it, he would have tried to go back, to find her if he could.

Now, he knew it was a lost cause.

—

He barely spared a thought for his father in Southport Correctional Facility. Most likely he eventually would starve to death in his cell as his guards stopped showing up for work.

It would be an awful death.

It was what he deserved.

—

Malcolm had been alone on the road for months when he saw met Alex and Eduardo. The two were standing back to back on a car, surrounded by the dead. They had some kind of makeshift spears that weren’t doing the job—the men were too slow, taking too long to thrust the spear and pull it back.

Sighing, Malcolm lit up his last firecracker. It only distracted a few of the roamers, but it was enough. He was able to get the rest, leaving his gun holstered in favor of hand-to-hand.

It was so _easy_ , compared to what he was used to. Roamers didn’t fight back.

“Holy shit,” the shorter man said, falling to his knees on top of the car. “Holy fucking shit, holy shit, holy-”

“We’ve got to go,” Malcolm interrupted. “The ones that went after the firecrackers will come back.”

“We have a truck,” the taller one said. He was blond and, Malcolm couldn’t help but notice, extremely handsome. “And, um, a community. A safe place. Come with us?”

The men looked well-groomed (beneath the roamer gore on their pants) and, more importantly, well-fed.

“Sure, ok.”

—

Eduardo, the shorter one, asked him the dreaded question in the car, “So what’s your name?”

“Ma-” But then he realized, he didn’t have to do this anymore. He didn’t have to take the chance that someone would recognize the name and connect it to his father’s. No one carried IDs now, and no one would ever watch a fucking Netflix documentary about his father ever again.

“My name is Paul. Paul Rovia,” he said, giving them the first name that came to mind: his old martial arts instructor from the FBI.

“Well, I’m going to call you Jesus,” Eduardo said, smiling. “Because that was some godlike savior shit back there, man.”

“My friends used to call me Jesus, actually,” Malcolm lied, and winked when he caught Alex’s eye.


	2. Chapter 2

Daryl had, overall, done a good job keeping his cool around Paul Rovia.

It wasn’t easy. The prick was irritating, smart-mouthed, and absurdly pretty–just so goddamn pretty–and Daryl found that the best policy was to avoid him when he could. When he couldn’t, though, he managed to sit through the sarcastic jabs and half-baked pseudo-philosophy and flirty teasing without completely losing his dignity. He’d blush, sometimes, and roll his eyes, and once when Paul had been mocking him by describing his ‘type’ as a thinly-veiled facsimile of Daryl himself, Daryl had unfortunately snapped and told him to please kindly s _hut the fuck up about everything, forever, just stop fucking talking and don’t start again until you can string two words together without being a goddamn menace to everyone around you, you fake little shit._

It was only that one time. He didn’t think Paul suspected anything.

Still. The avoidance tactic had started directly after that.

But today he couldn’t avoid him–they were on a run at a hospital known to be filled with walkers, and their best people had to go, which meant the two of them, Maggie, and Michonne.

Paul was arguably the best of the best. Watching him kill walkers was like watching Richard Petty drive or Slash play the guitar. The man was a virtuoso.

Daryl had to try harder than ever not to stare at him.

Asshole.

–

Daryl was clearing a maintenance closet when the floor collapsed beneath him. He felt something heavy hit his temple and his vision blurred, pain exploding through him. By the time he actually hit the ground he was woozy and wincing, maybe concussed and definitely useless.

His people were yelling for him upstairs, but somehow, someone was here already. In the mayhem he heard someone curse, then the sound of walker after walker being efficiently dispensed with.

–

He came to and immediately thought he was seeing double.

“No.”

“Daryl,” the one with the beard said. “Stay still. This, um, this man helped save you, and Michonne and Maggie are getting a med kit from the car-”

“No,” Daryl said again, and began trying to crawl away from Jesus and his beardless clone. “Hell no.”

“Stay still,” Paul insisted, trying to pin him to the wall without hurting him further. “I know this is confusing, _I’m_ confused, but you’re hurt and you need to-”

“I was adopted,” the other man said softly, and fuck, he even sounded like Paul, except maybe a little prissier. “But no one ever told me- were you adopted?”

“Foster care,” Paul said shortly, somehow more focused on Daryl than on the fucking _alternate universe Paul_ crouching next to him. “Daryl, quit moving.”

“There can’t be two of you,” Daryl said. Michonne and Maggie came rushing in, and he said, “Are you seeing this bullshit, or is this some fucked-up brain damaged fantasy I’m having?”

“Fantasy?” Paul asked, lips twitching.

“Don't you fucking start with me,” Daryl snarled, batting his hand away from where it was pinning his shoulder to the wall.

“We’re seeing it, Daryl,” Michonne said calmly, pulling out a small flashlight. “Now follow the light with your eyes-”

“You can’t come home with us,” Daryl told the stranger. “One of you is already too much.”

“Too much… what?” The man asked. He was staring open-mouthed at Paul.

“Too much everything. Too much karate. Too much blue, too much…” He waved a hand at Paul’s face, “Too much pretty.”  
  
He thought he heard Maggie laugh but didn’t care. It was the truth.

“Concussed?” Paul asked Michonne, like it was a foregone conclusion.

“Big time.” She put the flashlight back in the bag and turned to the stranger. “Thank you for helping him.”

“Um. It’s not problem. I’ve been hiding out here for a couple weeks, this floor was clear. Well, until he fell through it with a half dozen of the dead.”

“Do you have a group? A community?”

He hesitated. “Not anymore.”

“Better come with us, then. You don’t have to stay, but… seems like you and Jesus should get to know each other.”

“Not two of them,” Daryl moaned, but no one was listening to him.

No one besides Paul, who was grinning like the asshole he was and had at some point taken Daryl’s hand in his.

**Author's Note:**

> I've already accepted that I'm a ridiculous human being. You don't have to tell me.


End file.
